#372: Mapping the insignificant

In the autumn before retreating to their anthill to overwinter, the
wood ants eat all the energy-containing eggs and cocoons that would
otherwise not survive the winter. Deep underneath the anthill, below the
frost line, the wintering ants huddle together in large heat-storing
lumps, their size similar to that of a clenched hand. The ants continue
to change their place in the formation so that everyone in turn can get
inside to keep warm. The queen ant is kept in the middle.

The works on display, however, have formed in dry, rigid, and
rectangular spaces. Things that are barely perceptible move slowly on
the edges of the field of vision, while others melt together in the
middle of the room. There may have been a 56-hour blackout. Then the
primates too gather in the warmest room of the house. Friends have
deliberately forgotten some translucent materials in the studio. Texts
have piled up and now form snowdrifts on both sides of the corridor. The
workroom chaos has been simplified to an abstract, visual conundrum
with a lossy compression; a sharp-edged polygon mesh; a porous, ruined
space; a limitlessly scalable object that moves with the help of a
mouse. The neighbours that are of different species have been in touch.
The possibility of sculpting things, either in the dark or with
completely closed eyes, remains to be taken into account.